


It Really Would Have Been

by shattered_glass



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Could Be Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Season/Series 09, Sad Castiel, Sad Dean Winchester, Sad Ending, Sad everybody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 16:44:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3576621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shattered_glass/pseuds/shattered_glass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It really would have been something, wouldn't it?"</p><p>It was nothing more than a fact, really.</p><p>"Hundreds of years of certainty and solidity, and you came along, and you shattered me."</p><p>Cas was the one who started it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Really Would Have Been

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically me lamenting what once was a super duper fun and exciting ship, torn down by many seasons of not-so-great writing. This is just an angsty lil piece that I wrote about my feelings about destiel, and a conversation I could see Dean and Cas having at some point in/after season nine. I still do love those two. Please enjoy and let me know what you think!

It happened when they were sitting in the Impala. Dean was in the driver’s seat, and Cas in the passenger seat. Sam was elected as the one to run into the diner and pick up the food, Dean and Cas not wanting to move from the warmth of the car and into the pouring rain. That’s when it happened.

It was Cas who started it.

They both stared out the window at the rain under the street lamps. The radio was off, for once, which was unusual. The men were quiet, but there was no tension that filled the silence, or anger. There was just rain hitting the roof of the car, and then Cas started it.

“It really would have been something, wouldn’t it?” He asked. His voice was soft. He still looked out the car window.

“What would’ve?” Dean didn’t think too much of it, at first. And then Cas spoke again. It was Cas who started it.

“Us. You and me. It would have really been something.” Cas turned his head to look at Dean, and Dean met Cas’ eyes quickly. It wasn’t awkward. Dean thought it would have been, but it wasn’t. It was just a fact, the way that Cas presented it. The men looked at one another for a long time.

“Yeah,” Dean finally said. An admittance. An admittance after so many years of denial. Strange, that such a big thing came out in such a small word. “Yeah. It really would’ve.”

They both turned and faced forward and there was suddenly a thick, suffocating sadness that filled the air. Cas started it. Dean would have left it at that, probably, but Cas didn’t.

“I really loved you, Dean.”

Dean’s throat was tight. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cas shake his head slightly and look down at his hands, folded in his lap.

“I still do, of course. Always. But…back then…I really loved you, Dean.” His voice caught on Dean’s name, and Dean found himself nodding, more to himself than anything else. He wasn’t offended. He understood. He felt the exact same thing, except he’d never put it into words.

“I understand.”

“You were…you were bigger than anything I’d ever seen. In hundreds of years, you were the first and only thing that got to me. The things I felt…I didn’t know what it was, at first. I thought I was going mad. I felt like I was being torn apart. Hundreds of years of certainty and solidity, and you came along and completely shattered me.”

Dean nodded. He didn’t know what else he could do.

“I’m oftentimes so angry with myself I can’t stand it. I want to scream. Sometimes I do. I didn’t realize what I was feeling, and even when I finally did…when I should have done something…I didn’t. And now—”

“And now we’ve missed our shot, huh.” He phrased it like a question, but it wasn’t. It was just another fact. Dean and Cas were doing nothing but reviewing the facts, sitting there in the Impala, watching the rain. “We had time, and then we lost it.”

“Did you—would you have—”

“Don’t ask that question, Cas. There’s no point. If the answer is no, then you’ll be upset that you wasted all that time feeling that way. If the answer’s yes…then that’ll be worse, won’t it? Knowing that we both felt like that, and we missed out on something that could’ve—” Dean couldn’t make it through. He swallowed a few times, trying to get rid of the lump in his throat. He heard Cas take a rickety breath beside him and knew that the angel was having just as hard of a time calming himself down. Dean thought for another second.

“Yes, though. I did. I wanted us to be…” Christ, he couldn’t even say it. Here it was, unraveling, all falling apart, and Dean couldn’t even tell Cas—Cas, who fell from heaven for him, who endured pain and torture and fear for him—that he loved him. That was all Cas wanted to hear. That was all Cas ever needed to hear. But, Christ, Cas was right. It really would have been something.

“Do you think—is there any possible chance, even a small one, that it could still…” Cas turned his head slightly toward Dean, though his eyes still burned holes in his hands, which were shaking. Dean let his eyes flicker towards Cas for just a second and he could see that Cas’ eyes were watery. Dean could barely get out the single word,

“No.” The word was heavy. Final. Fact. “I wish that I’d done something about it. I wish I hadn’t just pushed it away, ignored it, but I did, and now—now everything is—it’s different. It feels different. It’s fucked up, and yeah, Cas, I think that we lost our chance.”

The silence lasted an eternity. Just the rain, tapping rapidly on the roof, and the occasional sound of a passing car. Shallow breaths from Cas. The diner was busy, Dean could see through the brightly lit windows, but Sam would be coming back soon. Probably with pie. Probably thinking that the three of them would just pick up where they left off. Dean couldn’t remember what they had been talking about, but Sam was laughing at something, and Dean remembered he was grinning. Cas must have said something funny.

Cas started it.

“I’m sorry,” Cas finally said. It was an unnecessary apology. It probably wasn’t even meant for Dean.

“Me, too,” Dean said softly, and he huffed out a shuddery breath and felt Cas look at him. He forced himself to look Cas in the eye. It was hard. He wanted to cry.

“But hey.” Dean’s voice came out barely just above a whisper. “We really were something, weren’t we?”

Cas’ face crumpled at that, just for two seconds, and then Sam was running back to the Impala with his coat tugged over his head. He rapped on the passenger seat window, and Cas turned to face him. Sam jerked a thumb to the back seat, grinning, indicating that it was his turn to ride shotgun. Sam and Cas were constantly bickering over who got to ride shotgun. Cas would probably let Sam have it most of the time, now. 

Sam never noticed anything. It’s not like Dean and Cas were openly weeping. Dean had a feeling that they’d both accepted it so long ago that there was no shock or grief to it now. The fresh, blinding pain of heartbreak had died down to a dull sadness that wrapped its hands around their throats and squeezed every time the two men looked at one another like they used to.

Used to.

Dean pulled out of the parking lot filled with potholes and glanced in the rearview mirror. Cas’ searing blue eyes met Dean’s, and for one last time, both men lamented over the fact that it really would have been something.


End file.
